Writing by an aging farm boy in the city

ABOUT

I hope you look at one or a few posts and go away with some thoughts to take home and grow on your own.

Why?

Have you ever noticed that life continues to change, even when we think that we’ve learned everything we need to know?

That’s what’s been happening to me lately.

My wife and I are helping a family of recently arrived Syrian Kurdish refugees bring their brother to Canada. Their story was a perspective-changer for me. Many of our friends have asked to be kept updated on the process and the people.

I changed jobs in November 2015, and after 23 years in educational television I’m now working in communications for the New Democrat government of Alberta, Canada. Consistently monitoring the Twitter and Facebook accounts for the NDP government was an eye-opener. The invective, obscenity and hatred thrown at the government was just like walking into a bar fight; violent, full of irrational anger and slightly out of control.

It made me realize that if calm and rational voices don’t speak up, the excessive and unbalanced might win by default.

What?

Alberta’s a big province, and I’ve had the opportunity to travel around most of it. I was born in Edmonton and raised on a mixed farm outside the city. I have worked in the oil fields, in factories, in construction, in gas stations, in the arts and in communications.

So these posts will talk about experiences from those times and current times.